Fresh from the recent disappointment of having the Fed Cup squad relegated to Asia/Oceania Group II, poor preparation and lack of communication are clouding the prospects of the Davis Cup team at the upcoming Asia/Oceania Group II qualifying round in March.
The Indonesian Davis Cup squad, consisting of Christopher Rungkat (ranked 1,262nd on the ATP), Sunu Wahyu Trijati (1,744), Nesa Arta and David Agung, will play Malaysia on March 5-7 in Kuala Lumpur.
Other matches in the group will see Thailand hosting Pacific Oceania, Hong Kong hosting Pakistan, and Sri Lanka hosting New Zealand.
But with less than a month to go, prepations have been poor with the Indonesian Tennis Association (Pelti) only scheduled to groom the players for a centralized training camp by Feb. 22.
“I feel that our preparation is lacking because we are training by ourselves. The training is mostly just playing tennis. We don’t have intensive workouts,” Sunu told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
“We have not been monitored [by Pelti] in the past three months,” Sunu said, adding that he expected better communication between Pel-ti and the athletes.
The last time Christopher, Sunu and Nesa trained together was two months prior to the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Laos last December, where they brought home a bronze medal.
The head of athletic development at Pelti, Kresno Merdiko, said Pelti chairwoman Martina Wijaya decided to hold the training camp only a week beforethe tournament as she claimed the athletes themselves requested they train in their own respective clubs.
“We learnt from the two-month for SEA Games training camp last year that the players were largely undisciplined and lacking in motivation. So why bother to spend any money on a training camp now?” Kresno told the Post on Tuesday.
Speaking on Indonesia’s aims in the Davis Cup, Pelti official Johanes Susanto said the only realistic target was to maintain position in Asia/Oceania Group II.
“Hopefully, we can maintain our position without having to battle it in a playoff,” Johanes said. The playoffs on July 9-11 will decide which team is relegated to Group III and which team promoted to Group I.
Indonesia holds a 3-0 record against Malaysia. In 2008 and 2006, Indonesia defeated Malaysia 5-0, while in 1982, Indonesia won 4-1.
Indonesia last competed in Group I in 2005, while marking its best Davis Cup performance of appearing in the 1983 and the 1989 World Group 1st Round.
Last week, the Indonesian Fed Cup team was relegated to Group II after losing all three Group I matches to Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, before eventually going down to Uzbekistan in a playoff.
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